Student now sadly denied university time, being this? (4,4)
I believe the answer is:
sent down
'student' is the definition.
The answer and definition are not the same part of speech.
'now sadly denied university time being this?' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
an anagram of 'now' is 'own' which is present in the answer.
'time' could be 't' (abbreviation) and 't' is present in the answer.
'being' could be 'end' (end is a kind of being) and 'end' is present in the leftover letters.
A single letter 's' remains which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
(Other definitions for sent down that I've seen before include "imprisoned" , "Expelled from university" , "locked up" , "Rusticated" .)